The Best Thanksgiving: Not Perfect, But Perfectly Present

As we approach Thanksgiving, I thought I would re-post this favorite. May you have a perfectly imperfect Thanksgiving!

As I sit here this Thanksgiving eve while iced cookies are cooling and the soon to be deviled eggs are boiling, I realize how this is a crossroads sort of moment. Like many of you we are preparing for a big feast tomorrow with lots of family and friends involved. Being a family of perfectionists, there have been moments of tension in our planning and preparing. We want things to be nice and that’s okay.

But as some point, we have a choice to make. Are we going to be perfect, or are we going to be present?

When we can’t find the right cookie cutter and run out of the fall colored sprinkles, will we huff and fuss or just roll with it, improvise, and move on? After all, does anyone really care about how perfect the sprinkles are, or do they just want to enjoy being with the kids who made the cookies themselves?

As you make your preparations for whatever Thanksgiving will look like for you,

however full or empty,

however whole or broken,

however joyful or bittersweet,

I encourage you to be as present as you can in it all.

I’ll go ahead and let you know that nothing will be perfect. Not your turkey, not your relatives, and certainly not yourself. But even though you are not perfect, rest assured that you are still perfectly loved. If not by those in the room with you, then by The One who brought you into being.

And that is indeed something to be thankful for.

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After serving as a minister for several years in the United Methodist Church, I am now a raiser of children, teacher of yoga, and author of the advent devotional Lighten the Darkness. I write at Centering Down and elsewhere about finding balance and grace in the midst of this busy, messy, beautiful life.

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